I want to start this by saying all babies are different. Just because this is what we choose and worked for us does not mean it’s right for your babies or will work as easy if at all for your family. (Part II will talk about cereals)
OK end of disclaimer rant now onto the good stuff 🙂
After our first refusing anything but mommy milk till he was 9 months old I’ve come to learn about a few streamlining methods that have worked 4 times over for us. Now the 3 older are veggie and fruit eating fools and request cucumbers and carrots as their movie snack.
We have found through the advice of our chiropractor and MD searches that cereal is just to harsh on their little tummy’s to start with. In our families we have a lot of food related issues anyways from every direction so I took that to heart and waited a good long while before introducing them.
Here is just two of many sites talking about the different perspective on not giving cereal first. https://www.mamanatural.com/baby-cereal/ and https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/patients-families/health-matters/may-2016/baby-food-for-thought-how-safe-is-rice-cereal.aspx
Avocados are like super food for babies because of all that they provide. They are the closest to breast milk and have the wonderful fats needed. Our first looooathed the taste of cows milk and the pediatrician said becuase he eats a healthy serving of avocados and cheese he’s OK. So that’s the very first food I give.
I take an avocado that is nice and soft right before it’s bad and add anywhere from 4oz to 6oz of breast milk and use my immersion stick blender to make it nice and smooth and creamy. I think added the breast milk also helps a great deal becuase they can still have that underlining flavor they are use to. Once they have learned how to swallow foods (remember it’s something new to master) then you can thicken the foods and reduce your liquids.
Tips:
- Start with a thinner consistency but not a dripping mess
- Do as many veggies as you can before you even think about fruits (fruits are sweet trust me they’ll love fruits and not to mention fruits are the bigger worry anyways when it comes to reactions)
- give a couple days between introducing another food, I like to wait 3 day
- remember the average is 10-15 times for a child to be introduced to something before they’ll like it … so keep it up your doing great!
- try to wait on cereals if you can and start with rice for the easiest digestion
- you don’t need a lot of fancy stuff a stick blender is good enough
- I like these cups for when we are going out but for home stuff I use these old fashion aluminum ice cube trays I inherited from my grandparents and snagged from estate sales (but $1 tree ones would work just fine!) This way you can pull out what you want and even better you can mix and make your own creation like those pricey pouches at the store.
- try to use breast milk when you can but filtered water is perfectly fine
- remember to label and date your food (I love dry ease markers)
- freeze everything and pull out as you need it (takes hardly anytime to defrost
Stay tune for another blog part II all about cereals and then part III on recipes!
Till then enjoy and God Bless
~Just Your Average Mama